


Dazed and Distracted

by electropeach



Category: Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb, Tawny Man Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Alternate Ending, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Tawny Man, Requited Love, references to canon trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28445571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electropeach/pseuds/electropeach
Summary: It was because I loved the Fool, and always had, because I loved my Beloved. It was simple to love Amber, who was part of them; indeed, impossible to not love her.In which Fitz and the Fool never return to Aslevjal from the Mountains, and Fitz struggles his way through some new ideas.
Relationships: FitzChivalry Farseer/Amber, FitzChivalry Farseer/The Fool
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32
Collections: Winterfest - Rote Gift Exchange☆





	Dazed and Distracted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistrali](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistrali/gifts).



> Dear Mistrali,
> 
> Happy Winterfest! I was so glad when I received your wishes, so many prompts seemed tailor-made for me! I agonized over choosing one over the others for a while, but since I’m especially partial to Fitzloved, I ended up going with that. Even then, I couldn’t pick just one prompt you suggested for this pair, so I combined a few. You suggested requited love, hurt-comfort, domestic fluff, first kisses and Fitz hanging out with Beloved’s various facets being their fabulous selves, and since I had just finished rereading Fool’s Fate (and bawling my eyes out again), I could think of no better way to deliver than to combine these suggestions in a slightly canon-divergent alternate ending to FF. I hope you enjoy reading the fic as much as I enjoyed writing it!

I drifted awake to hair tickling my nose.

The cabin was a pre-dawn blueish gray, pale light filtering through the carved shutters as I blinked my bleary eyes open. Sleep clung to me; it took me some time to realize that it was Beloved’s hair that was tickling me, and I smiled sleepily as I congratulated myself on my powers of observation. Their back was to me, and their side was rising and falling steadily beneath my arm wrapped around their waist. They were comfortably cool to touch, and comfortably alive next to me, and I drifted back to sleep without further thought, secure in the knowledge that I held my world in my arms.

They were gone when I woke up properly. I lay awake for a moment, chasing a thought or a realization I felt I had had the previous night, before shaking my head and pushing myself up. The thought would return, surely, if it had been important.

The main cabin was breezy and fresh as I stepped through the curtain that served as a door to my room, the shutters and the door open to the spring outside. The air felt cool against my sleep-warm skin, and I shivered as I pulled my shirt on. There was a kettle simmering on the low fire, and a pot of tea, still steaming faintly, on the table. Amber was sitting on the front step just outside the open door, leaning against the doorframe, a knit shawl around her narrow shoulders and her long fingers wrapped around a wooden cup. Her knees were pulled up, bare toes peeping out from underneath the hem of her skirt. Her hazel eyes were far away, and I believe I actually startled her when I sat down next to her. She blinked up at me, and the morning breeze tugged lazily at her golden-brown braid, trying to unravel it.

“Good morning,” I greeted her. “Sleep well?”

I knew she had not. My sleepy memories were hazy, but I did remember waking up and finding Beloved in my arms. Nightmares had roused them, then, and chased them to find safety and comfort in my company.

She did not respond at first, choosing to sip her tea instead. She licked her lips, then shrugged. “Poorly at first, but better near dawn,” she finally offered. “Good morning, Fitz. Take some tea before it goes cold.”

I knew a change of topic when I heard one and obliged her by standing up and ambling to the cabinet for a fresh cup. The cabinet’s doors were beautifully carved, as were the cups themselves; flowers and vines ran riot across every wooden surface in our cabin, pecksies and mischievous little sprites peering at me through them. The beams supporting the thatched roof were carved full of stars, the counters and tabletops decorated with streams and fields. The lintel above the doorway to her room was sprinkled with butterflies; the door beneath it, one of the first things we had fixed when we had taken over the hovel that had barely qualified as a cabin, was firmly closed, as always. The cup I picked up depicted frolicking fox cubs in the snow. Hers, I had noticed, was the one with dragons in flight, a plain indicator of her mood.

This coming summer it would be two years since Beloved had looked at the Skill pillar towering over us in the ancient marketplace and simply said, “No”. Two years since I had shrugged and said, “Very well”, and turned to walk the other way. No other words had been needed. I had Skilled instructions for retrieving Thick from Aslevjal to Dutiful, purposely pretending to not hear his bewildered questions or Chade’s outraged cries, and we had set out on foot. We had followed the Skill road back across the Mountains, a slow and arduous journey for my recovering companion, but a great deal more pleasant in high summer than it had been the last time we had traversed it midwinter.

Beloved had been quiet, flinching every time the name slipped from my lips. Lord Golden had seemed wholly and completely gone, and my Fool always just outside of my reach, only fleetingly caught in a wry chuckle at my attempts at joking, an exasperated look of amusement when I slipped on a stone while crossing a shallow stream and ended up sprawled in the water, or in wistful looks at the sky as he imagined it full of dragons. By the time we had traveled past Jhaampe, I had despaired of ever having my Fool, my Beloved, back.

There had been no aim to our journey, unless it was to not return to Buckkeep, and to not remain in the bitterly cold Mountains. Beloved had seemed as surprised as I was, when one day near Sandsedge they had sat back down on their inn bed after getting dressed for walking, frowned, looked around and said, “Here is good. Shall we stay?”

And so we had stopped walking. I had interviewed the locals until someone agreed to sell us a hovel of a cabin a good way from the town in exchange for the Fool’s traveling set of teapot, cup and bowl. I had felt outrageously cheated in the deal as soon as I saw the hut, but the location was good – not as far from town as my cabin near the remains of Forge had been, but far enough to be an undesirable dwelling for the townspeople. Far enough for privacy, close enough for comfort easily acquired, if we could make or raise something worth trading. Beloved had smiled thinly when I mentioned this, and told me not to worry about it, with rather more confidence than I felt.

To my surprise and joy, Beloved had taken to restoring the cabin with a great deal more energy than they had demonstrated in six months. Well, not _Beloved_ , precisely. We had scarcely thatched the leaking roof in the main cabin, leaving the sagging roof of the one side room alone for the time being, and slept huddled close to each other for two nights in our new home, when I woke up one day to find a strange woman humming and turning hearth cakes on the embers of our last night’s fire. Here, I had known instantly, was Amber, the missing piece of my Beloved, shining bright through the ashes of Aslevjal.

And while I had not understood the need to become Amber before, I understood it perfectly now: I, too, had become someone else in a similar situation. Amber had not been hurt; Amber had never been tortured to death. Amber could hum and take up ordinary chores and visit the town without fear that, somehow, everyone she met would know. I had welcomed her, glad to finally get to know her, even as I had missed my Fool.

That spring we had worked on the cabin, restoring the separate room for Beloved as soon as the main space held water and wind enough to be livable. Amber was as keen on privacy as any other facet of Beloved, and it had been a small thing for me to set all else aside and craft her a door before either of us had a bedframe or before we had a table – a small thing, at least, until Amber gave my lopsided and ill-fitting door a long look, made an obvious effort to not laugh at it and failed, and proceeded tinker at it until it fit and moved smoothly. Then it was the thing that made Beloved laugh for the first time in seven months, and more precious to me than all the treasures in the world.

“Fitz?”

I started out of my reverie and turned to find Amber standing behind me, her head tilted to the side, regarding me with a bemused expression. “You’ve been choosing a cup for a very long time,” she pointed out when I raised a quizzical brow.

“Well,” I cast around for a proper answer, “what did you expect, making so many lovely ones?”

There was a briefest blink, a flash of mirth much like my Fool’s in her hazel eyes at my clumsy compliment, and then she smiled. “Why, Fitz, I do believe I must cease to work on the chairs, then, or next you’ll take half the dinner to decide where to sit,” she quipped, brushing past me as she went about, closing the door and the windows to keep the warmth of the hearth indoors now that the air was fresh. She poured tea into the cup I proffered to her, then another cupful for herself, and then took up her seat on the floor near the hearth and resumed her work on one of our four chairs, despite her threat. They were yet another piece of furniture we had, out of necessity, made plain and serviceable at first, but which she was now transforming into something fit for a queen by carving delicate vines and ivy sprigs about its legs and back.

I watched her work as I sipped my tea and had my breakfast (seated on an already curlicued chair I had had no trouble choosing whatsoever). Her expression was serene and inscrutable, but there was a sallowness to the rich golden brown of her skin, a tautness to her lips that she visibly relaxed at intervals with a long exhalation. Headaches and weariness plagued her less these days, or else she had gotten better at hiding them from me, so last night had been a difficult one, then.

No wonder Beloved had come to me for comfort.

She was Amber most of the time, almost always by day like a creature of a folktale, brought to life by sunlight. After the first seven or eight months with a Beloved that was no one I recognized, the Fool had emerged, too, on long evenings spent talking quietly in firelight, brandy in our cups instead of tea. We spoke of old adventures then, shared and individual, and laughed as we recalled lives and friends in Buckkeep, and we spoke of shared sorrows and past hurts. He was amusing and maudlin in turns, not quite the Fool of my childhood, but perhaps the one from the Mountains. He always stopped short of talking about Aslevjal, though, and I did not press him.

What I had come to think of as Beloved – the core of my friend, the one possessed of incredible strength and stunning vulnerability, the one who had laid down their life to make their dreams come true and shattered mine in the process – had remained hidden. I dared not summon them (for “he” felt wholly inadequate now that I knew Amber) by naming them, not after seeing them flinch away from that name, but I missed them with my entire body and soul. So quickly had I come to rely on that constant presence, felt through the Skill link as almost a physical connection, severed at their death and restored at their resurrection. I had struggled with the notion that while I still connected easily with my Fool when we sat together watching the fire, that while Amber’s presence was all around me each day, filling our cabin, I still felt separate from Beloved, held at an arm’s length somehow.

But then we had taken up the cabin, fixed Beloved’s room and slept in separate rooms for the first time in eight months. Soon I had started to wake up, every now and then, to Beloved ghosting across the floor on bare feet, silent as a mouse, or lifting the corner of my blanket and crawling under it, or already curled up between me and the wall, without any notion how they had managed to climb over me without waking me up. The nightmares came when they were alone, and I never disdained their need for the security of my company. I was glad to provide it, almost stupidly happy to be of some help, even as my heart ached for the necessity of it.

And if sometimes taking them in my arms and holding them close, my palm against the fluttering beat of their heart, seemed like the only way I could possibly comfort and protect them, like indeed the only sensible and possible thing to do, I thought nothing of it.

xxxx

_Dear Fox,_

_I hope you are well. I trust you recall that I mentioned us having settled in a cabin near Sandsedge. It was barely worth calling that when we bought it, but you should see it now! Amber has done an amazing job of restoring the woodwork, and I am satisfied to say that our preparations for the winter have held out well, leaving us well equipped to face the spring and start planting again. The root vegetables seem to have taken well to the soil, so I plan to set up a little herb garden next._

_I should have known better than to expect my uncle to stop his experiments – has he regained his hearing, yet? Please remind him be more careful next time, and to leave his experiments to his apprentice. He’s not a young man anymore._

_We were happy to hear your son and his wife are doing well, and their child. Imagine, you a grandparent! Amber suggested that I write in larger letters, since a grandmother’s eyesight can hardly be up to the task of deciphering my “ridiculously small” handwriting, but as you can see, I had not the sense to listen to her. Good paper is expensive, and my translations take up much of my stock. I must squeeze my letter on a single piece, I’m afraid._

_Attached is a satchel of small packages from us, which I trust you to deliver to their appropriate recipients. A lot of it is Amber’s handiwork and should give you an appropriate idea of her skill and the amount of dainty woodwork I now live with. The statue of the wolf is for you, to remind you of a mutual friend; it is like to one that stands on my table, watching over me, as I write. The scrolls I hope you will deliver to your son and my uncle, as well as the inks (wrapped in fur and sealed well with wax, this time; I apologize for last time, again). The earrings in the shape of acorns are for my daughter, and the feather-shaped ones for my mother. Please also let my mother know that I have most certainly not neglected to write to her, and that the next time she decides to winter at Buckkeep she might let me know in advance to make sure that my letters find her, instead of admonishing me for forgetting her. I expect she will find several waiting for her when she returns to Withywoods…_

“Amber?” I called over my shoulder.

The humming in the adjacent room stopped. “Yes?”

“I’m writing to Kettricken. Would you like me to relay any messages to our friends?”

There was a sound of fabric rustling as she stood up from the floor and came to my doorway, lifting the curtain with one hand as she peered at me. “The earrings and the statue,” she reminded me, and I nodded, patting the satchel containing those on the corner of my table. Chade had Skilled to me some days ago to expect a traveling tinkerer to arrive soon, selling scrolls he suggested I might be interested in, and conveniently headed for Buckkeep soon after, in case I wanted something, such as personal letters or translations I would like his professional opinion on, delivered there. The old spider’s games amused me, but I was grateful that he played them rather than sending royal messengers to a humble cabin inhabited by what the town viewed as an eccentric artist couple, hardly expected to attract royal attention. It would have been even stranger for such a couple to write casual letters to the queen of the Duchies, so I addressed my letters to a Buck woman called Fox and took care to refer to our friends and relatives without their names.

Amber shrugged fluidly. “Just my love, then,” she said, and my stomach flipped over as my mind scrambled to remember what she was responding to. Ah, right. The letter. Then, just as I was going to nod again and turn back to my letter, her expression suddenly brightened with delight. “Oh! I forgot!” she exclaimed and ducked back out of the doorframe. I heard her go to her own room, search for something, and then she returned, a smile on her face and something small and wooden resting on her palms.

“I made this for Thick some time ago,” she said as she approached, holding the item closer to my candle so I might see it better. “I thought to send it along with your next letter home, but I had completely forgotten it. Here, what do you think?”

I took the item from her carefully. It was a small rectangular form, the size of a jewelry box, and beautifully carved with kittens and birds, stars and flowers, and little balls of yarn. It was surprisingly light, and I suspected that it was hollow, but could not work out any way to open it. Amber smiled, took it from my hands, and twisted and pressed and turned things until it opened to reveal a small space within, lined with blue velvet. My throat was abruptly very tight. I could well imagine Thick’s delight over a puzzle box others would have trouble opening, a secret place to hide his treasures, like the smoothly rounded stone resting next to my statue of Nighteyes; he had found it on the beach and sent it to us with Dutiful’s latest letter, thinking I would like it. He would enjoy solving the puzzle and like that Amber took it for granted that he could solve it.

I stared at the box through the prickling behind my eyes, then looked up at her, and was suddenly struck dumb by how much I loved her.

“It’s perfect,” I told her.

xxxx

It was so easy to love her.

Why was it so easy to love her?

I knew why, I thought as I twirled my cup of brandy in my fingers and watched the Fool spin his way through a tale of intrigue and adventure, an adventure he had apparently had – or imagined, for it was truly outlandish – while visiting the mysterious Rain Wilds. His hands were gesturing in sweeping, graceful arcs, his pose and expression mirroring the emotion of each moment and the personality of each person he had met as he unraveled the bizarre story.

It was because I loved the Fool, and always had, because I loved my Beloved. It was simple to love Amber, who was part of them; indeed, impossible to not love her.

But it was _different_ , with her, somehow. It was easy to want to hold her, to brush her hair out of her eyes, to touch her fingers as she passed me a plate. But that wasn’t it either: did I not like to embrace my Fool just the same, or hold Beloved when they sought my company to keep their nightmares at bay? Did I not reach out to touch him, them, as well, more often than I might have in my youth, simply to check that they were still there?

But it was so easy to want to kiss her. I did not want to kiss the Fool.

Did I?

“… And _snap_!” the Fool crowed, slapping his hands together with a startlingly loud clap and jerking me out of my reverie. “The branch broke, I did a neat little backflip right out of his grasp, and he plummeted to the ground, shrieking all the while! I imagine his screams might echo in the forest still.”

“You say it like he fell from a high cliff instead of a tree,” I grumbled, amused at his embellishment.

The Fool took up his own cup from the little table between our comfortable chairs and wagged a finger at me as he lifted it to his lips and sipped. “Ah, my Fitzy, would I lie to you? The trees of the Rain Wilds jungle are unlike any you have ever seen, my dear. Remember that they build their towns in the canopies. Imagine Buckkeep in a tree!”

I could not help but laugh at that, and he grinned as he pulled his feet up onto his chair and wrapped his free arm around his bent knees. I was not sure that I believed half of his tales – cities built in trees, indeed! – but I enjoyed them immensely. “Well, and perhaps we might visit one day, and you can prove me wrong,” I quipped.

The Fool was watching me with his head tilted to the side, no more gleeful and breathless with his wild story but contemplative, solemn, an almost unbearably fond look in his eyes. “Perhaps we might,” he agreed, his tone suddenly both soft and inscrutable. “I do so love proving you wrong, Fitz. Almost as much as you seem to delight in proving me wrong.”

There was no question, no rising inflection, but I heard it nonetheless, and as always, answered in kind by pointedly settling more comfortably in my own chair and stretching my feet out to the hearth. For a brief, stinging moment I missed Nighteyes, feeling keenly his absence where he should have been, stretched out comfortably between us and the fire, and then with a deep breath and a sigh accepted his loss all over again. Nighteyes or no Nighteyes, I was home, and planned to stay, no matter how many times the Fool insisted that he had dreamed a different future for me. I could not imagine wanting a different life.

“More brandy?” I offered, dissolving the tension between us by returning to the mundane.

He looked at me for a moment longer, took a sip of his almost empty cup and ran the tip of his tongue across his lower lip to catch a stray droplet. I coughed and averted my eyes as I realized that my gaze had followed the movement intently. After a moment of eyeing me, he evidently decided not to pursue the previous line of discussion and shook his head, apparently to both dispel whatever he had been contemplating and to deny my offer of a refill. “Best not,” he said with a wry smile. “I find I tend to sleep more poorly these days if I drink too much before sleep.”

“If you suspect you’ll have nightmares,” I heard myself say, “you might just sleep in my bed to begin with.”

He made a strange sound, half a gasp and half a startled burst of laughter, and then stopped, his fingers covering his mouth, and stared at me. I flushed hot all over under the warmth of his gaze, quite shocked by my own words but refusing to take them back.

“What?” I demanded, more brusquely than I had meant, and glared into my cup rather than meet his eyes. Too bad the brandy reminded me of them. “It’s not as though we haven’t shared a bed or blankets before. It makes sense.”

_I don’t think that’s what you meant_. The thought was clearly visible in his puzzled expression, a whisper thrumming along the thread of Skill connecting us, but he evidently thought the ice too thin to come out and say it out loud. I was grateful that he let me navigate my jumbled thoughts without adding to them.

He remained silent for a moment longer, that damned tongue tip flicking out to lick nervously at his dry lips again, then smiled a little and inclined his head to me in a gracious nod. “Thank you, Fitz. Alas, I never know which nights…” he trailed off, frowned, and shrugged fluidly. We might mention nightmares or poor sleep, but rarely discussed it further. “But I would take you up on that if I did.”

There was a very simple a solution to never knowing beforehand when the nightmares might come, but I was too relieved and too angry at myself and perhaps, just perhaps, too much of a coward to blunder into that one just yet.

xxxx

I missed my wolf again the following night. The moon was full, and its light filtered through the elegant carvings on the shutters in swirling silver patterns, dappling my otherwise dark room with what looked like pure Skill. I lay awake on my side, looking at the patterns moving gently as the tree outside my window swayed in the breeze, and longed for my companion’s wisdom and counsel.

Love was the easy part. I had held my Fool’s dead body in my arms and heard my heart shatter a bit more with each step as I carried him. I had missed the chance to call him by my name and known despair. I had given my body over to my Beloved’s soul and bid them live in it if I failed, and I had rebuilt them and willed them alive, and felt the rightness of it in the very core of my own bones.

There was no question that I loved Beloved.

It was not even that I found Amber attractive; Lord Golden had long since dispelled me of any notion that Beloved was anything but, in any shape or form they chose. It was the intensity with which I wanted to hold her in my arms and kiss her that frightened me. Because she was Beloved, and Beloved was the Fool, and if I wanted one of them, did I not want all of them?

I did. I did, I finally knew with certainty.

It shamed me that I had had to see my friend as a woman to realize that. It shamed me more that I still struggled with the notion.

I sorely missed Nighteyes’ wry wisdom. He would not have seen my plight, I suspected, and would have mercilessly needled me until I turned and looked right at what was in my heart, as he so often had. The Scentless One was pack either way, he would have insisted, and shrugged off my concerns for what others would say. We had not cared what humans thought of my bond with Nighteyes, nor what wolves thought of him dedicating his life to a human. What business was it of anyone else? All that mattered was the pack.

There was a sound: Beloved’s door had creaked open. Bare feet whispered over the cool floor, and then my curtain door was pulled aside, and Beloved was standing next to my bed, breathing unsteadily, and looking down at me with startled, misty eyes. Still fuzzy from sleep, surprised to find me awake and staring back at them.

“I-I…” they whispered, and I sat up and took their hands. Beloved resisted my grip for a moment, bewildered and confused, but I pushed calm their way experimentally, sending my Wit through our frail connection, and pulled them gently down to the bed.

Beloved curled up between me and the wall, and I lay down next to them, pulling the blanket over both of us. They were facing me, which was unusual, and I could feel their shuddering breaths in sharp exhalations against my collarbones. I hesitated, not sure if my touch was welcome – I was usually asleep, or pretending to be asleep, when they clambered into my bed, and to reach out and touch them now was to acknowledge and point out why they were here.

But then Beloved’s fingers, one set gloved even for bed, were clutching at my shirt, and they had bowed their head over them, forehead to my chest, and abruptly I found that my arms were around their shaking shoulders, holding them close. They were shivering, perhaps from fright, perhaps from the lingering cold of Aslevjal, and I rubbed soothing circles into their back, trying to warm them and remind them that they were safe with me, uninjured if not unhurt. Every now and then, something like a sob shuddered through their entire frame, and I felt my heart break on each sob all over again.

We must have drifted off to sleep at some point, for when I next opened my eyes, it was morning, and Beloved was breathing slowly and deeply against my neck. I had kept my hold of them in my sleep, and they had turned slightly, head tucked in right under my chin, and fingers still curled tightly into the now wrinkled material of my shirt. Peering down, I could just see golden brown lashes, paler than usual in the morning sun, and the gentle curve of their cheek, the rest of their face hidden underneath a tumble of tangled golden-brown hair. The bare arm under my fingers was pleasantly cool to touch, but their breath was warm on my collarbones.

The rhythm of Beloved’s breathing changed, and the lashes fluttered against their cheek as their eyes blinked open. Confusion and surprise thrummed along our link at finding the room so light, the day clearly already begun, and my wrinkled shirt collar right in front of their eyes. They had always been gone when I woke up, at first light, and already Amber when I crawled out of my room.

“Morning,” I murmured sleepily, and felt them tense slightly in my arms, clearly startled to find me awake.

“Good morning.” Cautious, careful.

I sighed, comfortable and reluctant to rise, so I closed my eyes again. “Stop that,” I told Beloved drowsily. I felt their frown against my collarbone; they had not moved, still slightly tense, as though not entirely sure they were awake. “The thinking. I can hear you doing it. Stop it.”

At this, Beloved went from tense to rigid, and my eyes flew open and I shot up to a half-sitting position as I realized my mistake. “Oh, no, that’s not – I can’t _hear_ you, not really. Your thoughts are safe, and always will be, and I’ll never…” I floundered and trailed off, at a loss for words. The false coterie’s attack on my Fool, so many years ago, had left deep wounds, and I cursed myself for constantly forgetting it. Just because I had never blamed him for its result, his betrayal, and had repeatedly told him so, I had no right to expect it erased the horror and violation of the experience itself. The last thing Beloved needed was to think that I could access their thoughts at will.

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stop my rambling words and thoughts, and looked down at them. I had jumped up and was leaning on my elbow, but Beloved was still curled on their side, holding themself perfectly still in the same position, still staring at where my collarbones had just been. Like a small creature hoping to escape notice by staying utterly unmoving, I thought. I bowed my head over them, touching my forehead to theirs, and heard a small intake of breath.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, very low. “I didn’t mean to remind you of that. I only meant that I could feel a lot of emotions in your… posture, and I suppose through our Skill link as well, and I imagined you were thinking furiously about it all, and I thought it just a funny remark. I want you to know that I respect your privacy and would never abuse our bond like that.”

A huff of breath burst out of them like laughter, and they finally moved, almost melted. A cool hand reached up to cup the back of my head, and Beloved turned their head so that our brows touched, and they could see my eyes. “Ah, Fitz.” Their long exhalation sounded more like a sigh now. “You can be quite charming sometimes.” They smiled, amused, but wonder and something like gratitude sang across our link, and my heart leapt. I was forgiven.

“Only sometimes?” I pretended to sulk.

“ _At least_ sometimes,” Beloved corrected with a wry little tilt to their smile.

Well, I supposed I deserved that, having been less than charming on an occasion or two in the past. Particularly on a certain occasion in Lord Golden’s chambers, I thought ruefully as I looked down at Beloved, now completely awake and acutely aware of my previous night’s thoughts.

Our foreheads were still touching gently. Beloved’s eyes had drifted closed and they looked content, as much as I might expect on a morning after nightmares, but Beloved did not know that I wanted to kiss them. The echo of the words I had spoken that day in Lord Golden’s chambers, whole worlds and a death away, shimmered between us like an invisible wall. I had no idea how to call them back and put different words in their place.

So I just blurted, “I was wrong. May I kiss you?” like it made sense in the conversation we were currently having instead of the one I was remembering, and Beloved’s eyes flew open.

“May you what?” they asked blankly. There was a sort of flatness to their gaze that was very discouraging, but I barreled on. I had leapt and would have to at least try to flap my hands to fly.

“Kiss you,” I said, very fast, and plunged on before Beloved could deny me, “because I was wrong, and I don’t know how to apologize, but I want to. Apologize. And kiss you.”

The words dropped like stones into a deep silence. I thought my vision swam as I waited with my heart hammering in my chest and mourned my stupidity at just blurting my thoughts out where a little preparation might have allowed me to present my suggestion more gracefully.

Beloved sat up abruptly, pushing me away and wrapping the blanket around their narrow shoulders. They looked away for a moment, and I could see them biting their lip before they glanced back at me, their expression carefully still, their voice even and low. “Fitz, I don’t need to be kissed better after a bad dream.”

“I know that.” I hesitated. I belatedly realized that my timing had been very poor; I did not want Beloved to think I was merely trying to coddle them after a scare, and even less that I was trying to take advantage of their vulnerable state. “I didn’t mean… to imply so. Or to take advantage of... Oh, Beloved, I’m so very bad with words.” I threw up my hands in despair and then groaned as I saw them blink and take a sharp breath at the name. In my confusion, I had used their true name for the first time in over a year. “Ah. There I go again. I’m sorry.”

Beloved frowned, but not at me; they seemed to consider the impact of the name. Then, with a shudder, they shrugged, not as fluidly as usually, but almost jerkily. “No, don’t be. It _is_ my name, and I have given it to you. We might as well reclaim it for us. If you wish.” They looked at me again, and I was relieved to see a sort of fond exasperation in their eyes. The warmth of it, which would have made me uncomfortable once, now seemed to breathe life back into me. “Fitz. My love. It will never cease to amaze me how you can write so beautifully, and yet make such a muddle of it when you try to say something nice out loud.”

Forgiven again, and called _my love_. I dared to smile a little, even as I fervently wished I knew how to stop punching holes where I wanted to press butterfly kisses.

“We can’t all have your way with words,” I attempted a compliment, and was rewarded with a slight upward curl of their lips. Feeling somewhat encouraged again, I reached out for the gloved hand, and marveled that Beloved allowed me to link my fingers with theirs. “But I am trying. I would like to reclaim your name and make it ours again,” I said slowly. “And I would… I would like to apologize, too, and say again that I was wrong. Before. And I would like to… This is not a good moment, I realize that. We could kiss later, if you like. That is. If you like. At all.” I trailed off, feeling very awkward. “We don’t… That is, I understand if you... if your feelings have changed.”

“Oh, Fitz,” Beloved said, their voice amused and frustrated and very soft, and kissed me.

It was barely more than soft lips on mine for a moment – far more innocent than either of the desperate kisses my Fool had once given me – but my thoughts went empty and my heart jumped and launched into a lively little jig. I was still breathing through it when Beloved pulled back to give me a hard stare that could not quite mask their trepidation and concern that they had somehow misread me.

“ _Oh_ ,” I said emphatically. “I liked that.”

Beloved laughed a little breathlessly, still wary and tense, but with something like relief melting some of the tautness from their face. “Well, that’s good.”

“Yes,” I agreed stupidly, dazed and distracted.

“Would you like to talk about this?” they asked, gently, and in some corner of my mind that still had room for thought I was grateful that they clearly knew my change of perception had not come easily to me and would still take some processing.

“Yes,” I said again, and kept staring at them wordlessly. At my friend, with whom I was now standing at the precipice of something new and wholly different. Beloved looked back at me and saw the vast unknown lying before us in my eyes, and they hesitated.

“Fitz.” Beloved took a deep breath. “Are you sure? There’s time, still.”

I looked at them, and needed no Skill bond to know what they were thinking. _There’s time still to turn back from this precipice. Time still to be what we were before. Time still for you to go home._

I nodded. “I am sure. I’m home.”

Beloved exhaled. “Ah.”

There was no need for other words. There was time, still, for those as well.

I took a long breath, gathering myself, and then, with a slight smile, moved to get up and start our day. Cool fingers on my wrist stopped me short.

“Fitz. Do we have something very important to do?”

I turned to look at Beloved. They were giving me a look that was equal parts determined and terrified, playful and defiant, challenging and inviting. I licked my lips. I knew perfectly well that the invitation, the challenge, was to kiss, at most, and then to work hard at figuring this out, at slowly finding our limits and exploring our bond together. Truthfully, I could not imagine any other way of building a more intimate relationship with them.

“Important? Always, I imagine,” I ventured. “Urgent? I can’t think of anything.”

“Then,” Beloved said, with the air of someone poking at ice with a stick to see if it holds, “shall we rest a little while longer?” They raised the corner of the blanket, inviting me back to my own bed, I noted with amusement.

I smiled. “I suppose we might.”

So we did.


End file.
